Patriots Journal: First taste of playoffs coming for numerous Patriots

FOXBORO — With Bill Belichick and Tom Brady on their side, the Patriots have a huge advantage in playoff experience over any of their possible opponents. But that does not mean all the Patriots know what...

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PAUL KENYON
Posted Jan. 4, 2014 @ 7:04 pm

FOXBORO — With Bill Belichick and Tom Brady on their side, the Patriots have a huge advantage in playoff experience over any of their possible opponents. But that does not mean all the Patriots know what postseason play is like.

Even with the team competing in the playoffs for the 10th time in the last 11 seasons, the 52-man roster includes 18 players who have never taken part in the postseason. They include 15 rookies and first-year Patriots LeGarrette Blount, Danny Amendola and Chris White.

What’s more, only eight of the 22 starters in the Super Bowl two years ago are now on the active roster. If the team wants to see what a Super Bowl ring looks like, there is only one active player who has won one — Brady.

While experience helps, it is not necessarily a huge factor. Co-captain Matthew Slater said everyone has to adjust, not just the new guys.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s an adjustment for all of us. All of us have to step up our game. All of us have to prepare a little bit more,” Slater said. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve been there before or you haven’t been there before. It’s a new team, new players. You just have to come out and try to be ready for what it’s going to be like.”

One of the rookies, cornerback Logan Ryan, made the same point his coach made: That is, after playing a full season, the rookies are not really rookies by this point.

“I don’t think anyone’s a rookie anymore once you have that many games under your belt,” Ryan said. “Now it’s a whole other season.

“Right now I just feel like I’m in a rhythm,” Ryan said. “It’s the same routine week in and week out. For the first time I can just focus on football. I don’t have to worry about school and other things, so that helps out a lot, too.

“It’s a job now. That’s how I approach it each and every day. I wake up and go to work,” he said.

Rob Ninkovich pointed out that in some ways the toughest adjustment for a rookie comes much earlier.

“It’s not easy being a rookie and going from college to having that long stretch, the combine, OTAs, minicamp, rookie camp, training camp. That’s a long year,” Ninkovich said. “For these guys here, it’s been a journey for them. They’ve had a good year, but it’s not over. So, for them, they just need to work really hard at focusing in on what our job is. Right now, that’s getting better and getting prepared for whoever our opponent is going to be once we find out.”

Many deciding factors

Belichick spoke the other day about how attitude can make a bigger difference than experience. He and others have spoken about how this team has demonstrated mental toughness, a trait it hopes will serve it well in the postseason.

“I think it’s definitely part of the equation. It’s hard to put percentages or anything on any of those kind of traits but whenever you bring a player into your organization, you get everything that comes with the player: his physical skills, his toughness, his learning ability, his personality, his leadership and so forth and so on,” Belichick said.

“We try to evaluate all of those things and then put kind of a composite grade — we look at them individually, but then in the end you have to put some kind of composite, overall value on the player. If you’re going to bring them onto the team, then that’s what that player is,” he said.

There are definitely ways to make a player improve. But in some areas, each player is what he is.

“We certainly work to try to improve some of those things: the study habits and the intangibles and the mental and physical toughness and all those kinds of things, and to a degree that happens,” the coach said. “It’s no different probably than anything else. You can work on a player’s speed and strength and explosion and you can probably improve it to a degree. I don’t think you’re ever going to take a slow guy and make him a real fast guy or take a weak guy and make him a real strong guy. But you can definitely improve it. There’s always an element of trying to improve in all those areas. That’s part of the evaluation.

“Then it’s kind of all put together. Does it have value? Yes. How much? I don’t know if I could quantify it. Is it the overriding thing? No, because there are so many other things involved, although, again, as we’ve talked about before, when it’s below the line or so far below the line in any area then you really have to decide whether a player on your team who is so far deficient or below the line in one of those areas that everything else can make up for it. I’m not saying it can’t, but it certainly is more challenging if that’s the case.”

Changes in the wind

There were reports Saturday that Bill O’Brien has dismissed the entire coaching staff with the Texans and will hire his own people. Reportedly at the top of his list is Romeo Crennel to be his defensive coordinator.

Among others, New England tight ends coach George Godsey, a former quarterback at Georgia Tech, is among those who will be considered to move up. If Josh McDaniels leaves for Cleveland, it could mean some major changes on the Patriots staff.

It all adds up

The Pats finished with a number of interesting numbers this season. Among them, they were among the worst in the league in third-down defense, allowing conversions 44.2 percent of the time. But they were the best in fourth-down defense, allowed conversions on only four of 21 attempts, 19 percent.